Boston Commander Fired Pepper Pellets At Crowd

By |October 26, 2004

A Boston police commander in charge of the area where a 21-year-old college student was shot and killed was one of four officers who fired pepper pellets into the crowds celebrating the Red Sox pennant victory, the Boston Globe reports. Deputy Superintendent Robert E. O’Toole commands the Boston Police Department’s Special Operations Unit, which includes the tactical team that used new high-force pepper-pellet guns early Thursday for the first time outside training. Shots from the guns killed Victoria E. Snelgrove, tore a hole in the cheek of a Cambridge man, 24, and pierced the skill of a 19-year-old Boston University student.

The Web site for FN Herstal, the gun manufacturer, says, “For safety reasons, never aim towards face, throat, or neck.” Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole, who is not related to Robert O’Toole, would not say whether he had been trained to use the rifle or whether an officer in a commanding role for such a major event also would perform street-level crowd control with the officers he’s supervising.

TCR AT A GLANCE

The award honors individuals in the media or media-related fields who have advanced national understanding on the 21st century challenges of criminal justice. It will be presented Feb 16, 2017 at a dinner at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

It's almost impossible for the bureau to track people like the North Carolina man who fired shots in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant in a quest for a phony child sex ring. “There’s not a lot of bandwidth for ... these one-offs.” says former FBI official Ron Hosko.

The New York Times, which tracked every shooting in Chicago, returns to the area where many of them are concentrated. "It's about desperation, decadence, depression and rage,” says the Rev. Marshall E. Hatch Sr., who has given eulogies for at least 12 victims of violence this year.

"Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems," says director Tom Frieden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The heroin-related death total topped the number of gun homicides by 10 cases.